The Fog

Things are fading in and out more often. Who knows how long the fog that invades my mind lasts for? Sometimes it could be mere moments, other times it could be days or even weeks. Who knows how long the fog lasts for?

Someone is talking, a familiar word. The sound weighs heavy on my chest, but the meaning is out of reach. There it is again, heavier, closer now. Once more, not just a word, a name. My name. Will. Using it all, my head moves towards the sound and something just as familiar emerges from the fog.

As my eyes lock on hers, her hard face softens and breaks into the warm smile of a loved one. How can I feel so old, and she still look so young? The fog begins to creep back in, but I focus on her face and push back into the light. The light. Reflecting from below her smile, the most familiar sensation so far.

How long does the fog last for? That reflection. The familiar heart shaped relic that belonged to my love long before I met her. The relic she grew old with. But if she grew old with it, who is wearing it now? Far too young. Another familiar word rings like the bells of the Old-World within my brain. Child. That word makes the fog recede further than it has in a long time.

The memories come back as a trickle at first, the smell of her hair, the sound of her laughter, her look of defiance. Then comes the flood. The fragility of the Old-World, what we took for granted.

Growing up we were always told we were destroying the planet and it was always strange to me that the adults never did anything about it. Often responding with half-answers about employment rates and economies and trade-off. When I got older, I realised that the other, far bigger half of the answer was money.

I was suddenly pulled from this memory by a gentle arm on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw the concern on the Child’s face, I was laughing. But why?

Money. Something so meaningless in the world this Child lives, but something all consuming in the world I lived in at her age. At best, people gave their time and energy for it. At worst, people gave their souls and lives for it, or even took the souls and lives of others. Money makes the world go round. That was drilled into my head from a young age, but money did not make the world go round. As my laughter for the absurdity of money subsides the Childs face softens again. She speaks once more.

She is telling me that the tribe council wish to know my prediction. Looking down at her hands, I see another relic of the Old-World. More practical than the one around the Childs neck. The brass of the barometer was worn, it probably looks as old as me. The Child leans towards me to hear my prediction and as she does the heart locket hangs perpendicular to her collar bone thanks to the inevitability of gravity. As she leans away from me, gratitude in her eyes, I feel the fog creeping in once more.

I do not hear her relay my prediction of rains to the council. I do not hear their chants and singing that the rains will come and from them will emerge the bounty of nature. The fog is too dense. Who knows how long the fog lasts for?

As the light comes back into focus so does the Child, this time my hand feels the warm grip of hers. She is different this time. The hard look does not fall when our eyes lock. She is telling me we must leave our home. A wildfire is sweeping the land and heading here. How long does the fog last for? What about the rains? Has it been that long?

I am hearing that the other Gods are angry with the tribe, and they seek my counsel to survive this ordeal. Her speech confuses me initially, but the gravity of her tone pulls my mind into sharp focus. She nods curtly at my response to her, and it is clear her faith falters. There is something else from the Old-World, it seems to have persisted.

Faith was important to many when I was the age of the Child. It was not for me. My pursuits were more scientific in nature and although some of the greatest scientists of human history were also some of the most devoted to their religion, during the twilight of the Old-World faith and science became more dichotomous.

To me, science represented the hope of human innovation to overcome any problem presented to us. Faith represented a mechanism to control the innovation of humans for the benefit of the few. Faith has many guises, faith in elemental spirits, faith in ancient gods, faith in a single omniscient creator, faith in society, faith in the law. And it seems that this Child’s faith was in me. But I am no God.

I was born as any other person before or after me. I lived during the peak of human technological and scientific endeavour. If I could explain how the barometer, or money, or gravity worked in a way this poor, sweet Child could understand, maybe I would be a god. My body feels colder as the fog wraps itself around my body and mind.

More memories trickle back. The union that gave birth to this tribe, this nation. She never liked it when I called her The Mother of the World. During the Bad Years, when the world we were destroying decided to fight back, when we had overpopulated the planet to a point where it could not sustain us, children were out of the question. The desperation of the governments fighting the climate, disease, each other, and even their own citizens reached a crescendo and the great experiment of human civilisation came crashing down around our ears. Children became the answer.

I was alone during those Bad Years. I was a savage during the Bad Years. I would have been considered middle aged in medieval times, but in modern standards I was just reaching full maturity. When the world fell to pieces, I fell with it. Until I met her. She told me that my name fit my personality, I always had the will to do what was needed, but just sometimes I needed direction. She took me from that life, she led me here and we found others. We built what we now must leave.

The Child is leading me through the wooden structures that my own hands cut and placed. My friends and I had such purpose. After the horror of the Bad Years those left were too tired to fight each other anymore, suddenly, there were too few people. Individuals came together in small groups under that purpose, to build a better world.

The fog encroaches once more, I am exhausted. I used to run these halls in all senses, now my body is failing me. The ground falls away from my feet as the fog begins to take hold.

Flashes of light this time, who knows how long the fog lasts between them? At first the earth disappears from underneath; the warmth of another’s body around my torso replaces it, I am being carried. Am I the Child? Next, I feel the wind, and the heat behind us, we are moving fast. Each sensation is quickly drowned in the fog.

That familiar word again. Will. Its power pushes the fog back enough. The Child comes into view once more. She is not alone, there are other members of the tribe here. My surroundings are becoming clearer, she took my advice and brought us to the other side of the river. The river was slow and wide and was the source of our prosperity. We use the water of the river to generate primitive energy for our home, as well as feed us, and quench us. The Old-Worlders used their knowledge to harness the power of the river. We tried to teach the New-Worlders how the technology of old worked, but they were uninterested. Their interests lay in their own innovation to solve problems.

The opposite bank of the river marked the end of our home, and we are now beyond it. We had clearly used the fishing rafts to cross the river as I do not feel wet and one of the tribespeople is lashing them to a branch that hung over the bank. It took years for the rivers to be flushed clean of human contamination and repopulated with fish.

Fishing was a good example of the New-World versus the Old-World. Months were spent trying to teach the first three waves of young people how to use industrial fishing nets that were scavenged from the Old-World fishing boats, until we gave up. The young ones saw no fun or challenge in using the nets and preferred to fashion crude wooden and bone spears, called Fish Forks, and spend the dry days out on the river on a raft, chasing fish in the now clear water. Bringing home dinner and high spirits.

An eternity away from the pressures of the Old-World, I am sitting here as my home burns, at the end of my life. My eyes move across from the rather advanced looking handmade Fish Fork cache on the raft, to the heart shape floating on the chest of my descendant. It flickers in the firelight. I smile as I think of all the amazing achievements I will never see. The fog is approaching once more, I wonder how long it will last for this time.